2010-07-28

Way to look like scammers? (warehouseexpress.com)

It seems warehouseexpress.com won't sell me an eye.fi card unless I send them a copy of a bank statement or driving licence or utility bill. (For some reason council tax bills and water bills are not acceptable either!)

WTF! I am not asking for credit. I am paying by debit card with the verified-by-visa crap so they have no risk (as I understand it) and shipping to card holder address. How hard can it be?

The only people that ask me for such details are scammers and fraudsters (which is probably why their email tripped the spam score and was not read).

In my opinion, either they are scammers or they are really bad at business and like to make life difficult for customers.

Madness.

P.S. They would not tell my PA (AKA my daughter) what the email was about or anything about why the order was delayed as she was not me - but they are happy to take cancellation of order from her? What kind messed up idea of security do these people have?

Interestingly our own "dear leader" pronounced as recently as May 28th that "Britain is open for business" (http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=22564162) perhaps you caught warehouseexpress.com on their day off?

Sadly though, your experience is all too prevalent in so many areas of British business that you have to wonder how they survive... well except for quasi-monopolies who have an inbuilt survival mechanism however shite they are in practice.

No idea how many readers your blog has but the old maxim is that a happy customer tells one person, an unhappy one tells the world... (http://blog.retailblogmarketing.com/a-happy-customer-tells-one-friend-an-unhappy-customer-tells-everybody/)

My understanding is that the card companies cover the retailer if they have followed the rules - i.e. only ship to cardholder address, and do the vbv crap, so why would the retailer need any extra checks - if it is bogus they don't lose out.

"My understanding is that the card companies cover the retailer if they have followed the rules"

Unfortunately not.

If a card is not "Verified by Visa" etc, then the card issuer can withdraw the funds from the retailer.

Even if the card has been correctly authorised, fraudsters are very clever and if a retailer lets enough verified but fraudulent payments go through, then they can still find the funds withdrawn.

The long and the short of it is that if your card is used fraudulently, chances are that you will get your money back. The retailer on the other hand is likely to face a chargeback (with the bank withdrawing the funds)and will have lost their goods.

You can't blame them for being careful, although they do seem to have been a little heavy handed in this instance.

That is interesting. I vaguely remember some of this starting to come in before barclays card services stitched us up and we got out of it. I thought they were guaranteeing the vbv crap to the retailer. Shame.

Asking for copies of bank statements, etc, is OTT IMHO though. They can confirm the address anyway so why ask for more paperwork FFS.

Anyway, another on-line store is more than happy to take my money instead.

Last time I looked into accepting CCs the gist of it was more like "If the details given pass the CVV2, extended address/postcode checks and all other security measures we recommend, then we might deign to help you out in the event of a chargeback, but even then we're not guaranteeing anything, especially if foreign CC networks are involved. (And if you haven't done all the checks, you're on your own.)"

I bought a MiFi device from 3 recently (the one in your recent photo - excellent device!) and my credit card was rejected by Nationwide. I had to pay with another card. Ten minutes later I got a phone call from their Fraud Prevention department, asking me to verify my recent transactions.They explained that the rejection was caused by "a common pattern with stolen cards": Buying petrol from an unattended "pay at the pump" petrol station, followed by buying a mobile phone. So they didn't try to verify my identity at the time of the "phone" (MiFi) transaction, they just refused it. What a pain!

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